I was never sloppy with other people's money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.

I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage.

The whole reason one wants to do lower budget films is because the lower the budget, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the themes, the more interesting the art.

Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.

The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.

My family were symphonic musicians and in the opera. Also, it was my era, the love of radio. We used to listen to the radio at night, close our eyes and see movies far more beautiful than you can photograph.

I'm no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can.

Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up.

I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing.

Roger Corman exploited all of the young people who worked for him, but he really gave you responsibility and opportunity. So it was kind of a fair deal.

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while.

We support each other in the Coppola family. We love the idea of everyone getting his place in the sun.

I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way.

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams.

I always found the film world unpleasant. It's all about the schedule, and never really flew for me.

All of a sudden, there are great Japanese films, or great Italian films, or great Australian films. It's usually because there are a number of people that cross-pollinated each other.

Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued.

By working in the morning, I find a sense of peace; it's isolated peace, but I can definitely be in touch with my feelings, and then I just start.

In kindergarten that used to be my job, to tell them fairytales. I liked Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm fairy tales, all the classic fairy tales.

I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.

Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time.

George Lucas doesn't have the most physical stamina. He was so unhappy making Star Wars that he just vowed he'd never do it again.

I never went to a psychologist or psychiatrist in my life. Never. You know, Italians are a little prejudiced against that kind of thing.

I think a sequel is a waste of money and time. I think movies should illuminate new stories.

Without a doubt, I was born to want to make cinema, but the kind of cinema I want to make is not like commercial movies, which I enjoy myself, but I wanted to be the kind of filmmaker who wrote original work, sort of like a novelist would who deals with who we are and our times or our relationships.

I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

My big goal in life was always to figure out how I can make a lot of money so I can go off and make films irrespective of the opinion of the three or four critics who seem to rule the roost.

'Godfather' was very classical - the way it was shot, the style - the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean.

I was always the black sheep of the family and always told that I was dumb, and I had a low IQ and did badly in school.

I've been offered lots of movies. There's always some actor who's doing a project and would like to have me do it.

We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.

Sound is your friend because sound is much cheaper than picture, but it has equal effect on the audience - in some ways, perhaps more effect because it does it in a very indirect way.

If you're a person who says yes most of the time, you'll find yourself in the hotel business and the restaurant business.

I was raised as a Catholic, but I didn't like the Catholic Church at all. I thought the nuns were mean.

I had a number of very strong personalities in my family. My father was a concert flutist, the solo flute for Toscanini.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

They needed someone to write a script of The Great Gatsby very quickly for the movie they were making. I took this job so I'd be sure to have some dough to support my family.

A number of images put together a certain way become something quite above and beyond what any of them are individually.

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.

I had been a kid that moved so much, I didn't have a lot of friends. Theater really represented camaraderie.

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.

Most filmmakers can't afford to try something out that doesn't work.

Listen, if there's one sure-fire rule that I have learned in this business, it's that I don't know anything about human nature.

We do things for good reasons that are bad.

When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget.